2025 Theme: African Americans and Labor
The 2025 Black History Month theme, African Americans and Labor, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture.
Welcome to the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Branch of ASALH Located in Pittsburgh PA
It is our pleasure to welcome you to the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Pittsburgh Branch of ASALH, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, established in 1915 by Carter G. Woodson.
Here you can join the ranks of thousands of other members and experience the richness of the ASALH organization, activities and events, and how we labor in the service of Black people and all humanity.
Feel free to contact us with any questions you have about the organization, our ongoing work, or membership.
Members and Family Involved in Labor
March is Women’s History Month, and on March 8, 2025, from 11:30 AM EST to 1:30 PM EST, the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Branch of ASALH will present an exciting program featuring two phenomenal and significant speakers.
Rev. B. De Niece Welch, PhD
Dr. Margaret Bristow
This program promises to be enlightening and enriching.
Joins us to honor the legacy and contribution of African Americans in Labor.
ADVANCED REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. REGISTER TODAY TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT!
Help Preserve Black History: Join Our Branch Speakers Bureau
We have launched The Dr. Edna B. Mckenzie Branch Speakers Bureau in 2024! We are inviting all Branch and National ASALH dues paying members to consider participating.
Branch News
- Women’s History Month Featuring Rev. B. De Niece Welch, PhD and Dr. Margaret Bristow
- Members and Family Involved in Labor
- Help Preserve Black History: Join Our Branch Speakers Bureau
- Honor Our Veterans 2024
- Branch Table Presentation
- My Ancestor, Through My Writings: Walking the Trails of Nat Turner
- Hope for Haiti: Providing Help in the Midst of Crisis
- The Black Ekphrastic at the Crossroads of Poetry & Art
- Black Female Legacies in the Arts
- Genius Is Common Among Us: The Whitewashing of Black Genius
Ronald B. Saunders, Branch President
Our mission is to promote, interpret, disseminate, research information about Black life, history and culture — every aspect — to the global community.
“This is not just for Black people. This is for everybody.”
—Ronald B. Saunders, Branch President
The ASALH Pittsburgh Branch carries the legendary name of Dr. Edna B. Mckenzie.
Established on September 9, 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, we are the Founders of Black History Month and carry forth the work of our founder, the Father of Black History.
ASALH’s mission is to create and disseminate knowledge about Black History, to be, in short, the nexus between the Ivory Tower and the global public. We labor in the service of Blacks and all humanity
BRANCH LEADERSHIP GALLERY
Alexis
Clipper
Alonna
Carter
Anita
Russell
Rev. B. De Neice Welch, PhD
Betty
Pickett
Judith
Saunders
Stephanie
Boddie, PhD
Madelyn Turner-Dickerson, PhD
Artie
Travis, PhD
Rev John C.
Welch, PhD
Tamara
Saunders
DR. EDNA B. MCKENZIE
Dec 29, 1923 – June 26, 2005
Image © Carnegie Museum of Art, Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive
PIONEERING JOURNALIST AND HISTORIAN: IN THE COMPANY OF GREATNESS.
Dr. McKenzie was known for never having a harsh word against anyone, but what she wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier powered the collapse of discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. Dr. McKenzie was an accomplished pianist and the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in history at the University Pittsburgh
Dr. McKenzie began her career at the Courier as a society reporter in the 1940s, quickly jumping to the news desk and covering lynchings and other hard news alongside the men. When she went on the road for her series on discrimination, Charles “Teenie” Harris, the Courier’s legendary photographer often accompanied her to document what happened.
Armed with her pet phrase “tell the truth,” Dr. McKenzie was meticulous in documenting Black history. She believed history could be used to empower, inform, and teach, and that Black people should never be ashamed of their history.
ASALH 2025 THEME:
National Events Celebrated Locally
This year’s festival will celebrate the theme of African Americans and Labor in the past, present, and future.
STARTS FEBRUARY 1st 2025.
The 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor”, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture.
Be it the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora.
The 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” sets out to highlight and celebrate the potent impact of this work.
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DR. EDNA B. MCKENZIE BRANCH OF ASALH 